My first flat in Kyiv was a couple of metro stops outside the city centre, just opposite Volodymyrskyy market, in a nondescript mid-20th century block. The lease was arranged by post. It took me five days to drive there from Edinburgh in an old Polo in November 1991. Finding my way to Kyiv was easy – one road from Calais takes you straight there – but once I got to the outskirts, I must have used a paper map to navigate through the city. I spoke no Ukrainian, and enough Russian to ask basic directions, but not enough to understand...